He was eyeing another when Chau burst onto the shoreline through the weeds about thirty yards on his left. Zeus yelled to him, and waved, signaling that he should loop around and come up through the path.
“There’s a path,” he said. “Come out this way; it’s drier.”
Zeus went back to work, fetching out two more boxes by the time Chau reached him.
“Where’s the sergeant?” Zeus asked.
“With the men. We must go back.”
They had five missiles, but no launchers, and no launcher boxes that he could see. Zeus went back out onto the small ledge, but couldn’t reach the other two boxes. He waded into the muck, then stepped forward onto one of the boxes. He pulled the other out and gave it to Chau. The one beneath his feet was too embedded to retrieve.
“There aren’t any more launchers,” Zeus told the major. “We’re going to have to go back to the houses to get one.”
“Yes,” said Chau, his voice still hoarse. “That’s where Angkor is.”
Zeus opened the boxes and, by stripping away some of the protective interior material, managed to get three in each box. That gave them only one box to carry apiece.
“It would be better to attack the tanks from the far side of the road,” said Zeus. “We can move back a lot easier. But we need a launcher.”
“Maybe we should not attack them,” said Chau. “We are so outnumbered.”
Chau’s point was utterly logical, yet it caught Zeus by surprise. The only options he was even considering involved the location of the attack.
“What happened to your phone?” Chau asked.
“I lost it in the water. We’re not getting any help here anyway.” Zeus pointed in the direction of the smoldering ruins. “Where is Angkor and the launcher?”
“We were right in front of the smaller house,” said Chau. “There was a ditch.”
“All right. We’ll come up from behind the houses.”
Zeus led the way back toward the smoldering ruins. The air smelled like burning wood and dead fish.
The tanks had stopped, somewhere up to the right, out of sight around a bend. It was impossible to tell from the sound exactly how far away they were, though Zeus assumed they were very close.
“We have to watch for scouts,” Zeus told Chau. “They have infantry with them. Where’s Angkor?”
“He was to meet me here.”
“Angkor!” Zeus yelled. “Sergeant Angkor!”
He turned to Chau.
“Can you call him?”
Chau tried, but his voice was still far too hoarse.
“Give me the words,” said Zeus.
“Just say his name.”
Zeus tried again, but he got no answer.
“He must have moved to a safer spot when he heard the engines,” said Zeus.
Passing the hovels, Zeus saw two bodies lying a short distance from it. He veered in their direction, dropping to one knee to stop next to them. Both men were covered with blood, their eyes glazed.
He wanted a gun. Neither man had one.
Back on his feet, he started after Chau. Something moved on the other side of the road, a short distance from one of the blown-out tanks. It looked like a gust of wind, knocking through the tall weeds. Zeus eyed it as he ran, mind and sight not entirely coordinating. Green materialized beneath the weeds as they popped up: Chinese soldiers, wearing the equivalent of gillie suits.
One of them started firing. Zeus leapt the rest of the distance into a ditch near the road, clutching his missile case to his chest like a gigantic football. He twisted on his shoulder as he went in, spinning and landing sideways.
Chau and Angkor were already there, about ten yards away. Angkor fired a single burst, then another. The Chinese responded with a full fusillade as Zeus scrambled over.
“How many?” he asked.
Chau shook his head. The ditch was wide but shallow, with a foot and a half of water at the bottom. It ran a few feet from the road, possibly to help drain it during heavy rains. Two wounded Vietnamese soldiers sat against the side to the left. One looked as if he had already died; the other didn’t look too far behind.
Besides a single AT-14 launcher, they had Angkor’s AK-47 and a box of ammo — nowhere near enough to hold off the soldiers across from them, let alone whatever vehicles were around the bend, waiting for these guys to tell them what was up.
Zeus leaned against the side of the ditch, trying to gauge the distance from where it ended to the nearest tank. The vehicle was perhaps ten yards from the shallow end.
“I have an idea,” he told Chau. “Start firing when I’m at the far end of the ditch. Get their attention.”
“What?” asked Chau. But Zeus had already started away, leaving his missiles. He scrambled until the ditch became too shallow, then crawled on his side, making sure he didn’t rise high enough to be seen. He glanced back, and gave Chau a thumbs-up.
Angkor began firing. Zeus waited until he heard the Chinese respond, then threw himself forward, sprinter style, from a four-point stance. He ran behind the tank and sprawled on the ground, unsure whether he’d been seen.
The gunfire died. Zeus curled himself as tightly as possible and scurried around to the second tank, reasoning that it would be harder for the Chinese to see him there. He slunk around the side, then climbed gingerly up to the tank’s turret, crouching by the side.
The hatchway was still locked though the front of the tank had been destroyed. He reached across for the machine gun, but couldn’t quite reach it from behind the turret without exposing himself to fire.
One of the soldiers popped up in the field and took aim at Angkor and Chau. Zeus boosted himself upward, grabbed the gun, and swung the barrel in the man’s direction. He stabbed his finger at the trigger and fired. The gun jumped as the bullets flew from the barrel, flying high and wide from their intended targets. Zeus pulled himself up behind the machine gun, bracing his knees against the turret. He fired again, this time lacing the field where the soldiers were. Mud and bits of green and brown leaves flew into the air.
He let off the trigger, waiting for the soldiers to show themselves amid the thick grass and weeds.
Something moved about thirty yards ahead. Zeus swung the barrel over and began firing again. The stream of bullets seemed to just start when suddenly the gun snapped and the stream ended — he’d run out the belt.
He couldn’t see another. He raised himself higher, looking for an ammo box.
Something flew from the area he’d been firing at.
A grenade.
Zeus dove forward between the two tanks as it sailed overhead. The grenade landed behind the third tank, which had stalled crosswise in the road. It didn’t explode at first, and for that long second Zeus considered whether he should have tried to grab it and throw it back. Then there was a sharp boom and a flash, most of the explosion muffled by the tank.
As Zeus hunkered down, he glimpsed a boot a few yards away. One of the Chinese tankers had fallen there; a gun poked its nose out from under his body.
The gun was a small Chinese Type 79. Intended mostly for internal security forces, it was a 7.62 lightweight submachine gun occasionally used by tank crews as an emergency weapon. Its small box was full.
Another grenade sailed through the air. This one, too, overshot. Zeus pulled the submachine gun next to his chest and ran from the tanks into the field behind the Chinese soldiers. The grenade exploded as he ran. He counted to three, then belly flopped to the ground inelegantly but in time to avoid being seen.
He could hear the Chinese talking. They were between ten and fifteen yards away, to his left.
They obliged. Zeus saw the soldier rise, then drop down immediately as it left his hand. Like most soldiers, he was inordinately fixed on the device’s explosive power, and took no chances once he let it go.
Zeus figured he was ten yards away at most, and directly ahead of him.
As the grenade exploded, Zeus jumped up and began firing. Sweeping three quick bursts into the grass, he
